Miracles of Revolutionary Energy

Published:First published inPravdaNo. 92, July 10 (June 27), 1917.

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 25,

      pages134-136.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.  

      2002You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Ournear-socialist Ministers are developing near-incredible
      energy. Peshekhonov has declared that “the resistance of
      the capitalists has apparently been broken” and that
      everything we have here in Holy Russia will be
      “equitably” distributed. Skobelev has declared that
      the capitalists will have to give up 100 per cent of their
      profits. Tsereteli has declared that the offensive in this
      imperialist war is the most righteous thing from the point of
      view of both democracy and socialism.

ButMinister Chernov has without a doubt outdone everyone in
      these manifestations of miraculous energy. At the last meeting
      of the Provisional Government, Chernov made the Cadet gentlemen
      hear his report on the general policy of the department
      entrusted to him, and said he was introducing as many astenBills!

Surelythat was a miracle of revolutionary energy. Less than six
      weeks have passed since May 6, and yet as many as ten Bills have
      beenpromisedin this short period! And what Bills! The
      ministerialDyelo Narodareports that these Bills
      “in their totality encompass all the principal aspects of
      the economic activity of the countryside”.

“Allaspects”—no more no less. What a whopper!

Theonly suspicious thing is that the ministerial news paper
      devotes more than one hundred lines to a description ofsomeof those splendid Bills without saying anything
      definiteabout anyof them. “Suspension of
      certain legislative acts concerning the peasants”—we are
      not told which. The Bill on the “courts of
      conciliation” is the most interesting. We are not told
      who are to be conciliated and how.“The regulation of rent
      relations”—we are kept completely
      in the dark; we are not even told whether it is a question
      of leasing the landed estates, which are expected to be
      expropriated without compensation.

“Areform in the sense of greater democratisation of the
      local land committees.” Wouldn’t it be better if you authors of
      sweeping promises immediately listed at least a dozen local land
      committees, giving, in exact terms, their present,
      post-revolutionary, yet, according to your own admission, not
      fully democratic composition?

Thepoint is that the tireless activity of Minister Chernov, as
      well as of the other Ministers mentioned above, is the best
      illustration of the difference between a liberal bureaucrat and
      a revolutionary democrat.

Theliberal bureaucrat submits to his “higher-ups”,
      i.e., Lvov, Shingaryov and Co., voluminous reports on hundreds
      of Bills that are supposed to benefit mankind. All he offers the
      people is palaver, fine promises,
      Nozdrev[1]phrases (such as the one about 100 per cent profit or a
      “socialist” offensive at the front, and so on).

Therevolutionary democrat, while submitting a report to his
      “higher-ups”, or even before submitting it, reveals
      and exposes every evil and every shortcoming before the people
      to arousetheir, activity.

“Peasants,expose the landowners, expose how much they
      take from you by way of ’rent’, how much they have had ad judged
      to them in the ’courts of conciliation’ or the local land
      committees, how much cavilling or interference they have been
      guilty of as regards cultivating all the lands and using the
      landowners’ implements and livestock to meet the needs of the
      people, particularly the poorest sections! Expose it yourselves,
      peasants, and I, a minister of revolutionary Russia’, ’a
      minister of the revolutionary democrats’, shallhelpyou to publish all such exposures and to remove all oppression
      through your pressure from the bottom and mine from the top!!!”
      Surely, this is how a true “revolutionary democrat”
      would speak and act.

Nothingof the kind here! Nothing at all! Here is the language
      used by the ministerial newspaper in regard to Chernov’s
      “report” to Lvov and Co. “While he does not
      deny that there are a number of agrarian excesses in somegubernias, V. M. Chernov thinks that, on the whole, rural
      Russia has proved to be much more balanced than one would have
      expected....”

Yetnot a word was said about thehold-upof the only
      Bill named specifically—the one about “suspending
      the sale and purchase of land”. For the peasants had long
      since been promised the immediate suspension of sale and
      purchase. It was promised as early as May, but on June 25 we
      read in the papers that Chernov had presented a
      “report” and that the Provisional Government
      “has not yet taken a final decision”!!!

[1]Nozdrev—a blustering liar in Gogol’sDead Souls.